Sunny days, gentle breezes and light evening showers. The weather in Ponyville is perfect, thanks to the hard work of the weather team. Everypony loves it. Except, it turns out, the weather team itself. A story about passion and pegasi.

Rainbow Dash has rather a poor reputation when it comes to her workload. Everypony always thinks of her as the pony who takes three naps during daylight hours, and four on weekends, and always seems to be looking for something to do to pass the time. All of this is true, of course. But ponies seem to think this means that she must not ever get very much work done.

Can the weather captain for all of Ponyville really be as lazy as she seems? Is that the only explanation for Rainbow Dash's free time and constant napping?

The weather is a full-time job. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And the worst weather happens at night.

Thanks a lot! Glad you liked it. In a story like this, characterization means a lot, so I'm glad I seem to have hit the mark. I dabble in drawing and digital artwork, so I like to make covers for my stories.

And of course Applejack could Never let Rainbow know that she knows. Applejack knows it would completely mortify her friend, and while they have a relationship of gentle teasing and friendly ribbing the fact that Rainbow doesn't realize exactly how good she is means that her performance anxiety would kick in with even the hint of acknowledgement. It isn't really until she re-creates the Sonic Rainboom that she's able to shake that mentality off.

8330877One of Rainbow Dash's problems is that she feels untested. She has this general idea that she's awesome, but she also has a rather skewed perspective on what is and is not difficult. It's one of the reasons she dislikes her parents' constant praise - it makes her feel like she might be making a big deal about a small thing, like they do. The only thing she's ever done that she is 100% certain is impressive is the Sonic Rainboom. Which she did once. As a filly. And has never been able to do again, despite trying over and over for years. So she knows she was awesome once, and that she hasn't been awesome enough to repeat it ever since. This contributes to both her ego and its fragility.

Applejack has a number of reasons for not talking to Rainbow about her nighttime aerobatics. Like you said, she realizes Rainbow wants it kept a secret, and would be embarrassed if anyone knew. Applejack also has a bit of a rivalry going with Rainbow, and previous experience has shown her that Rainbow is willing to crow over even small victories in their competitions far beyond the point where becomes annoying. She limits complements about Rainbow's physical abilities to a minimum on general principal.

Which, of course, makes Rainbow see any admission from Applejack that she did good as a really big deal. Which makes her even more obnoxious for Applejack to complement. And the cycle continues.

8331436Applejack is one of the few non-pegasi to wake up early enough to see that Rainbow Dash is actually awake before dawn. Even she doesn't quite get it right - she knows Rainbow works nights, and that she sneaks in early morning practice, but she doesn't really understand that Rainbow (and the other ponies on the weather patrol) has this different sleep cycle than most ponies. She just figures Rainbow takes naps a lot because she wears herself ragged and falls asleep on the spot. She still thinks Rainbow has some point sometime in the day where she gets a real, long sleep like everyone else, which is why she's so willing to interrupt Rainbow's naptime.

Of course, pegasi in general are familiar with the idea of weather patrol sleep cycles, even the ones who sleep normally and are not involved with the weather patrol. They have their own opinion on Rainbow Dash, but it's formed mainly from how little effort it seems to put into anything she does - she doesn't really try when it comes to things she doesn't care about, and when she does try, she often makes it look so effortless that it can be deceptively easy to disregard the work she's put in as her natural talent.

8331488Good! The idea was interesting to me, when I realized that the weather is a thing that never stops needing attention. In fact, I imagine that most ponies would want the bad weather (rain) to happen while they were asleep and didn't care, which means that storms - which, I feel, must be considerably more complicated and difficult to manage than clear days - would most often take place at night. This means that Rainbow, as weather patrol captain, would be needed to work at various times around the clock, but not necessarily for extended periods. This provided an explanation for why she naps so much, and the rest followed naturally.

8331611Thanks! It certainly is. I am extremely pleased with how my story has done. Up to 102, now.

This reminds me a lot of working at McDonald's on overnights. A workload oscillating between "nowhere near enough to do" and "this is way too much for two people," and a lot of idle chat the entire time. Got a lot of fun memories doing that even if overall working there was horrible.

I've come back to beg you to write more Rainbow Dash. She's my favorite character and no one with real writing skills focuses on her anymore. Your writing is so good that instead of following my usual practice of downloading a fic, reading it, then deleting it, I first read it, read it again, and am now going to download it.

8335129Yeah, but I just wonder how impactful it'd be. After a while it'd get monotonous, or eventually they'd just make Rainbow Dash the Princess of Humblebraggary and get it over it. At least that's how I'd see it going if extended too much.

8335249As long as stuff is happening I don't see it getting boring. But yeah, once her character's completely developed she'd have to be retired as the main character. Either that or be taken to a new place. That's after a lot of story though.

8331954That's my experience with the night shift. Half of the time, you're falling asleep, Other half, you have to have the energy equivalent to 8 cups of coffee to keep up with it all.( I might exaggerate a good bit on the coffee part.)